Proceedings of the 2022 Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) Consortium National Conference

Dear Colleagues,

We are organizing a Special Issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH), entitled “Proceedings of the 2022 Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) Consortium National Conference”, to highlight the research advances reported virtually on March 16, 2022 - March 18, 2022 (https://www.rcmi-cc.org/). IJERPH is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes articles and communications in the interdisciplinary area of environmental health sciences and public health. For detailed information on the journal, we refer you to https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph.

Building on the successes of the previous RCMI national and international symposia on health disparities, the theme of the 2022 RCMI Consortium National Conference is Inclusive Excellence. The scientific sessions and oral and poster presentations will showcase the best science across the RCMI Consortium. Hence, the overarching goal of the conference is to advance the science of minority health and health disparities through the development and implementation of collaborative solutions to improve minority health and reduce health disparities.

Following opening remarks by NIMHD Director, Dr. Eliseo Pérez-Stable, Dr. Joshua C. Denny and Dr. Kenneth R. Gersing will highlight research collaboration and funding opportunities with the NIH All of Us Program and the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C), respectively. The Opening Session will also provide an update on NIMHD evaluation of the RCMI Program, as well as an update on the progress of the RCMI Coordinating Center in defining common metrics and data collection standards for evidence-based evaluation of the RCMI U54 Centers.

The plenary sessions, oral and poster presentations, and concurrent workshop sessions will highlight the best science across the RCMI Consortium. The concurrent workshops will feature the following RCMI research awards and collaborations: (1) RCMI Data Science & Data Science NOSI Awardees Workshop will foster data science skill-building activities, proposed by the Data Science NOSI award recipients, including the collaborative development of new data science training modules focused on the analysis of health disparities datasets; (2) RCMI COVID-19 Awardees and Community Engagement Workshop will promote and strengthen academic and community partnerships in effectively supporting clinical and translational research that addresses diseases that disproportionately impact RCMI communities; (3) Practice-Based Research Network (PBRN) Workshop will discuss and highlight pragmatic and deployment-focused approaches that incorporate stakeholder perspectives in decision making for research studies, and service delivery strategies that are feasible, scalable, and sustainable, leading to  improvement in health care services for populations that experience health disparities; (4) Research Infrastructure Workshop will facilitate communication about research resources at RCMI U54 Centers in order to enhance effectiveness and efficiency of core facilities, and promote innovative practices for collaborative and interdisciplinary research; (5) Investigator Development Workshop will focus on preparing the all-important Specific Aims page and provide useful insights into the NIH application submission and peer-review processes, including information about the Early Career Reviewer Program; and (6) Research Administrators’ Workshop will introduce how RCMI U54 Centers can showcase their scientific discoveries and community health impact with the new RCMI Consortium website, as well as share solutions on efficient data collection for progress reports, evaluation, and other research-related deliverables.

The conference participants, including biomedical scientists, health care practitioners, trainees, clinicians, pharmacists, nurses and other allied health care professionals, and community and industry partners, will discuss and develop research strategies and approaches for eliminating health disparities. They will also examine career development opportunities and discuss the best methods and approaches for training the next generation of biomedical scientists and clinical researchers, as well as for engaging community partners and industry collaborations.

Focusing on basic biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research, the conference abstracts will address several key areas including: Basic and Applied Minority and Health Disparities Research; Behavioral and Social Determinants of Health; Capacity Building in Health Disparities Research; Clinical and Translational Minority Health and Health Disparity Research; Community-Based Participatory Research; Data Science/Big Data Applications to Health Sciences; Health and Health Care Policy Research; Health-Related Technologies; and Research in Special Population Sub-Groups. Hence, several important topics will be covered, including:

• behavioral and social sciences
• biomedical informatics and computational biology
• cancer health disparities research
• cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease
• women, child, and adolescent health
• clinical and translational science
• cellular and molecular biology of human diseases
• complementary and alternative medicine
• environmental health and toxicology
• health literacy and health information technology
• hiv/aids and infectious diseases
• nanoscience and nanotechnology
• neuroscience and mental health disorders
• public health sciences

This Special Issue aims to showcase the excellence in research and scientific discoveries on the above-listed topics. Submission of full manuscripts of original research, comprehensive reviews, and/or short communications on any of these topics presented at the conference is strongly encouraged. If you are interested in submitting a manuscript, please go online at www.ijerph.com to register and submit your manuscript by the deadline on October 30, 2022. Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere. All manuscripts will be thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process.

Prof. Dr. Elizabeth O. Ofili
Prof. Dr. Emma Fernández-Repollet
Prof. Dr. Richard J. Noel, Jr.
Prof. Dr. Daniel F. Sarpong
Prof. Dr. Magda Shaheen
Prof. Dr. Paul B. Tchounwou
Prof. Dr. Richard Yanagihara
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.